In aikido, how can you learn to defend against a legitimate offense if everything is defensive?

Question

As many of you know, I'm not a fan of aikido. Putting that aside I have a legit question. From my understanding of it aikido is a purely defensive art and always wait for the attack. If that's the case then how can they effectively spar if nobody knows a legitiment offensive. Sure they could throw a few basic attacks but how can you really know that your defense works unless it goes against a equal offensive attack regularly. Isn't part of martial arts knowing that if your on par with a highly trained person, an untrained person will be a walk in the park. Do you understand this logic or is there something I'm not seeing here?

Answer 1

There is a huge misconception regard aikido.



The simple answer to the question is if there is no offense there is no defense. There is no need to defend if there is no attack.



The akidoka from what I have witnessed comes from a variety of other training. Some that begin training are highly ranked in other arts, but have chosen to change an study nothing but Aikido. I know some that hold Dan ranks in Kajukenbo, judo, various styles of karate, etc. Of course there are some that aikido is there only art that they have studied. Then you have those that train in aiki, but continue to train in another art. These people know how to strike.



The big misconception is thee is no resistance. I have tested for rank in aikido. There is resistance. The beginners don;t get much resistance but the higher the rank the more you face. Also, when I began training in the dojo the senior instructor had me work with his higher ranked students because he knows my background. We have known each other for years before I began to train with him. He point black told me to hit his brown belt. He said they should be able to take a punch or be able to defend against it being brown belts. He stated, " the defense must work in the dojo and outside of the dojo. It is pointless if it only works in the dojo or against those that know what you are going to do."



So yes, you are missing something just like many other the unjustly prejudge aikido based upon a video. I know a policeman that will tell you about the many time his aikido training saved his life on the streets working. The instructor that I was talking about took a knife from a guy at the bar. A band teach that threw a guy when he was a beginner that grabbed him from behind while at work at his part time job at a grocery store. He threw the guy before he realized that he knew the person. The person complained to the supervisor about being hurt by him when he was just playing. But the supervisor sided with my friend because he didn't know he was playing and he shouldn't have been sneaking up behind him playing a work. He ended up get in trouble because he was horsing around. But he never tried it again..lol I know several others that have used the art for legitimate self defense.



By the way I soon became the favorite person to train with in the dojo because they knew they would improve their technique after working with me or they would be hit. They also like working with the kajukembo guy too. He is one of the instructors though. His technique is effortless. I like working with him too. He is a former drill sgt and served in a couple of branches in the military. He also hold a Master rank in another martial art. Hopefully one day my technique will be as good as his.

Answer 2

Strictly speaking, Aikido-ka would never find themselves in a competitive match: competitions means there will be a winner and a loser, and that concept is anathama to Aikido.



Strictly speaking, there are no aggressive strategies in Aikido, therefore, they would never attack.



But Aikido-ka are humans, and humans have free will. Attack a human being who knows Aikido, and you might end up with a broken shoulder, or you might not: the outcome is not because of anything to do with Aikido, it has everything to do with the choices that Aikido-ka made. They are free to compete, but the techniques are not designed for competitive edge. And that was the basis for my previous answer: since there is no "reason" to attack (getting points or a KO), and since there are no aggressive strategies in Aikido, the Aikido-ka can only logically wait for the strike to come.



In training, though, we do practice realistic strikes. Beginners don't: they are more concerned with the principles of attack and defense. As they become more senior, they are free to resist and become more free-form in their performance. People quit Aikido before they get to this point, because usually, they are frustrated with the progression to "realism" and "resistance". Honestly, if they had given it more time and patience, they'd have understood this.



When you have someone's wrist in your control, it is but a quarter-inch in any direction that can make the person think twice about their actions. If they are hell bent on continuing with their attack, or if the Aikido-ka thinks that letting them go would be disasterous for the Aikido-ka, then a step outside the strategies of Aikido is necessary: the wrist must be broken. Will the heavens part the clouds and an admonishing finger be wagged at the Aikido-ka for doing this? Will the Aikido-ka be banned from further practice, or be stripped of rank? No, of course not.



Pure Aikido is defense only. But, like yin and yang, it requires to understand committed strikes, and a variety of offensive movements, in order for it to be practiced. And humans are rarely pure at anything. So oftentimes, the question of Aikido's effectiveness (notwithstanding the issue of the matter that the stylist, and not the style, is the one who's effective) is based on several misunderstandings: that Aikido has no offense (that is true, but that doesn't necessarily apply to the stylist, who is free to add in whatever offense their ethics requires); or that Aikido is purely defensive.

Answer 3

Aikido DOES teach strikes, and is NOT a "pure" defensive art as you're saying. You misunderstand what the philosophy means. What it means is Aikido is not a martial to use to go around beating people up, but only when they try to beat up an Aikidoka.



The sports "offense/defense" is different than the martial arts interpretation. It doesn't mean "attack/defend" in the same manner. The very definition of "Aiki" completely nullifies that all together. It's all part of the same circle and does not separate itself like you see in other places.



Please legitimately study into Aikido and what it means rather than spreading false assumptions. You might not like Aikido just "because", but that does not give anyone any right to bash it.





ADDED

That's not my philosophy, and in disagreeing with me you still said the same thing I just said. As far as the sparring stuff goes, ever hear of randori?



So according to you, an offensive martial art is one where you go around beating people up?

Answer 4

To clarify the question, ‘how do aikidoka practice a good defense when they don’t have a good offense to practice against?’



And to this I would have to reply, having a good offensive person wouldn’t matter anyway since the attackers are taught to attack without resistance into the counter. So even if you had a boxer train with them they would blame the boxer for pulling his arm back instead of “full dedicating” into the attack feeding the attack for the aikidoka. So the training method makes a horrible attacker equal to good attacker.

Answer 5

Neck lock, then repeated striking to the uto. Or as others say, step side ways and execute ude hishigi te gatame, to pin the wrestler face down. Or grab the fingers before the wrestler could get a hold and dislocate them immediately. But seriously, I'm tired of the bullshit with style vs style questions. Depends on the context of training entirely, wrestling could be much more than a sport if practiced in the right context, a lot of law enforcements use it. In the end of the day it still depends on the skill of the practitioner since a good takedown is a good takedown, there is no guarantee that an advanced technique will never be defeated by a simple technique. Traditional arts do have the sophisticated strategy and efficient techniques but it's quite a big assumption to believe that all sport training methods are geared to sport and what's outside of sport isn't taught in all wrestling schools. As for the debate between judo and aikido, technique wise, aikido do have a lot more to offer than judo, but their philosophy is different. Aikido teaches a set of techniques to deal with a situation quickly. Judo tends to focus on a few techniques, and you need to fully graps them and be able to make variation and modify them, just like boxing, even there are just 4 punches you could combine them, you could modify them for different effects etc. But if you are looking for a variety of techniques to deal with a variety of situations, aikido would be a very suitable art, more so than judo or wrestling. I personally don't think that an aikido guy could defeat a wrestler's leg takedown, simply because the wrestler is a trained individual, he's not the average joe which could allow aikido to work. Aikido as I said deals with a variety of situations, but does not focus entirely on fighting wrestlers, as self defense was its aim, not competition. Therefore, what I am stating is that aikido is good for self defense, but in a competition area or if he allows a competition technique to be done, then he will be defeated for sure. This is exactly like the early matches between boxing and karate. Karate is a self defense art that deals with a variety of situations, it's not a fist fight. However, once the karateka stepped inside the ring, they are no longer dealing with a variety of situation. They're in a boxing match, with people who are specialised in boxing matches, therefore of course, a lot of the karateka lost. It's exactly as they say it in silat, never box with a boxer, and never grapple with a grappler. On that note, I believe a well trained wrestler will be able to shoot in and take down an opponent with double leg takedown effortlessly. Simply because the aikido guy isn't specialised in it, he has to work on striking, weapon defences and a lot of other stuffs. He doesn't practice his anti leg takedown techniques all the time. Similar to how a karateka never just practice his punching techniques all the time. So you are essentially pitting a generalist with a specialist. The reason why the police use it is because they have to deal with a variety of situations, not a special area of the entire scope of crime. Now because the wrestler is the specialist, he will be good at takedowns BUT, this will limit his options, so that he may not be as specialised in other aspects that aikido works on. So therefore in real life, the options wrestlers have will be very limited.

Answer 6

Like Jiu Jitsu, which was derived from Aikido, it uses the opponent's movement against him.



Granted, it's not the most aggressive martial art, but that doesn't mean it isn't effective.



Perhaps the story in the below link will help illustrate how Aikido can work (and how one student of the art learned that lesson in a real confrontation):

Answer 7

I can only speak about my training experience. And to understand how Aikido techniques work, you need to understand the philosophy behind the training. From my experience, there are basically three stages of training: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Most beginners do not have to worry about resistance because they will be focusing training on safety and basics first, which means basic ukemi, kokyo ho(the Aikido equivalent to Judo Kuzushi) and basic joint locks. All of which can be safely practiced against a grappling attack, meaning one can focus their training against grabs and not necessarily strikes. Since, unless you're such a total douche that people can't help but start swinging punches or throwing kicks at you at the get go, most self defense situations basically start with either a shove or a grab, before someone starts swinging. And that's where you start your training, at stand up grappling. And since you can slowly up the level of grabbing resistance, you can safely train without worrying about getting a shiner or bloodied nose, as long as you are careful with your atemi. When you reach intermediate level, that's when you begin to focus on proper Maai or distancing and dynamic movement training, meaning you begin dealing not only against a moving opponent but also multiple attackers and of course striking opponents, this is still not necessarily full resistance level since the focus is more on speed and footwork.You learn to dodge and evade properly. It is when you reach advance level that you begin worrying about getting hit full impact. For this we were trained with the bokken, nothing is more intimidating than an attacker swinging a wooden sword made from hardwood at you full power, this teaches you to duck first and parry second and never to block. This also teaches you very effectively how to use footwork and distance properly to defend yourself. Full power cuts, slashes, stabs, thrusts, these represent the directions from which most attacks come at you, so if you can learn how to defend against these, you can definitely learn how to defend against punches and kicks by adjusting your movements in training. That's where getting a partner who has skill and experience in the striking arts comes in. This is dependent on you and your instructor's initiative, since our Sensei was a blackbelt in Shotokan before he took up Aikido and several of our seniors held blackbelts in Tae Kwon Do, we weren't exactly lacking in partners who knew how to strike. But since Aikido emphasizes redirection and escape, you only need to worry about the initial attack, then you do not need to stick around to see how good the other guy's roundhouse kick or three punch combo is.



edit: I forgot to add, that when people say Aikido is purely a defensive art. They don't mean it has no offensive techniques, it just means it is used purely for self defense. Just because a surgeon's scalpel is used exclusively for operating on a patient doesn't mean you can't use it to carve a turkey with, but then a kitchen knife would be better suited for the task. Encountering a mugger who tries to stab you at the park or a gang of hooligans trying to bludgeon you with baseball bats is totally different from going one on one and toe to toe with a trained athlete inside a cage or ring, so the training methods you use to deal with the situation is different.

Answer 8

The enemy will have a strength and a weakness. You will learn that when fighting. You let the guy attack first.

Answer 9

You need to use defense against offense. What good is offense against offense, you wont know what to do

Answer 10

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLP_DInpPHE